Dear dimwit on the phone

I used to spend a whole summer covering legion ball, usually up to the state and sometimes regional tournaments.

Depending on the ballpark, the food was almost as good as Buffalo Wild Wings, and I love sitting and watching baseball.

The wooden bat league vary so much. The one here in Glens Falls is well-established, kids come back for a second year a lot, and the city rallies around them a little.

The other thing that helps with those leagues is having a number of local players.

 

How many people attend "semi-pro" football games? Calling it semi-pro is misleading, since I don't know of any outdoor leagues in that category paying anyone.

As for summer baseball, there is little need to cover Legion or summer college leagues, unless it's a brief and a couple of features throughout the season. The number of people in attendance is a good gauge on what the community thinks of the team. Next time you're at a game, count the number of people in the stands and substract those related to players, coaches, umpires, and concession stand workers. If the final number is more than 75, I'll be shocked.

 

As I stated earlier in the thread, we would see an average of 4-500 folks at games throughout the season, but a lot of that was due to the high school/community we plan in. The school was shut down a few years back and having football in their stadium is nostalgic and they love it.

One semi-pro team in Alabama had over 3,500 folks at their season opener.

 

I don't have any numbers on this, but it seems like a good many of the collegiate wood bat leagues are in the northeast or north. I know there are some in New England and some in the upper midwest. I'm sure there are others.

I remember as a college SID how a lot of our kids tried really hard to catch on with certain teams over the summer months. And the change from NCAA aluminum bats to wood bats can be fodder for an interesting story.

 

The co-owner of the baseball team came into the office today to meet me. The first thing he did was say that there's nothing to do around here except watch his team, and that we should give them more publicity.

He asked at least twice, maybe three times, if he could pay me to write a story for him.

I politely told him "No" each time. Next time, I will not be so polite.

As for coverage, I told him things that I've told him at least a dozen times in emails in recent weeks, and he acted like he'd never heard them before.

He made a point of showing me the gaudy championship ring they won last season. Safe to say, I really don't like this guy.

 

Mark: I think you are right on the geography, though I know Alaska has one, too.

The bat-switch story is pretty standard and usually pretty good.

 

Stitch: I think that depends on where you are and how successful the teams have been in recent years.

Certainly in places like Boyertown, Pa., you're seeing crowd much larger than that.

But I think in general, Legion has taken a series dip.

 

The legion team in my area is barely alive now, since they said AAU takes most of the premium players. Their #3 starter last year was some kid who was a JV starting pitcher for a varsity program that went like 5-15.

 

Good on you. You're my hero of the day!!

 

If you are in an area that has high school baseball, a lot of the legion players are the same. So if you've told someone's story during the high school season, what else is there to say two months later?

One place I worked did not have high school baseball, so legion baseball basically took the place of that. Didn't draw flies for attendance and I felt we gave them too much coverage.

 

I never was big on Legion ball, but we've got a 16-team league, and they're all local.

It isn't that no one is going to these wooden-bat games (though it's pretty darn close to no one), but our readers care more about the local kids than the college team full of players they've never heard of before.

 

My state allows teams in all sports to play games -- technically unaffiliated with the schools -- from late May to early July. Basketball teams might play a dozen games. Football does the 7-on-7 leagues and camps. Most baseball teams play a couple doubleheaders a week, maybe 20 games total for the month. They're all not-so-glorified scrimmages.
My first few years I looked at it as an extension of the high school season. I sat there, in 90-degree heat, for both ends of the baseball doubleheader and wrote gamers like I would in the regular season. If nothing else, it was a way to fill a timecard in the summer.
Then I realized that no one gave a shit. Not even the teams.
Half the time, starters aren't at games because they couldn't get off work. Coaches swap out their starters from one game to the next, so one is either a full-on JV game or a mix of varsity and JV players. Some of the guys with serious talent play for a high-end select team.
And not only does no one keep a scorebook, most of the time you have to press the coach to remember the final score the next morning.
Nowadays we'll hit a couple of doubleheaders when the locals play each other, do a summer update, run the upcoming games in the schedules section and call it a day.
Once I realized they didn't care about the outcome, I stopped caring. Unless someone is doing something spectacular beyond the summer team, there's only a few stories to care about there. Even with features, you're better off tucking them away for the actual season than writing them now.